Succulents and More™

I just got back from a long weekend in Santa Barbara, one of the top two aloe destinations in California (the other being San Diego). As you may remember, I did the same trip in 2024 and 2025 . This time, my frequent partner-in-crime Kyle was able to come along. Sharing an experience like this with a great friend and fellow plant nerd makes it all the more memorable. We even had some beach time This post is just a quick summary of the places we visited; there’ll be more detailed posts in the coming weeks. San Marcos Growers Over the past 46 years, San Marcos Growers (SMG) has given California gardeners more cool plants than any other grower. As a wholesale operation, it wasn’t open the public, but many retail nurseries up and down the state (and even beyond) carried their plants. As I mentioned before , SMG officially closed its gates on December 23, 2025, but there are still quite a few plants available for purchase. In the coming years, 1,500 housing units will be built on the nur...

This has been a strange winter. We hit 33°F a few times in January but never dipped below freezing. I can’t remember the last time that happened, maybe never. On the other hand, we also had the longest streak of tule fog since 1970 — 22 consecutive days in December, and a few more in January. Nighttime lows and daytime highs were only a few degrees apart in the 42-45°F range. A persistent blanket of moisture clung to everything, with no wind to help dry things off. This unfortunate combination of factors was more than enough to do real damage. Here’s an echinopsis that sailed through last winter and yet rotted as a result of the lingering wetness and cold: Rotting from the ground up, even though the soil is loose and well-draining The rot has progressed too far to rescue this poor thing Typically, I don’t worry about tender agaves until temperatures get close to freezing. But below is proof that the dreaded black spots can appear even when nighttime lows are in the low 40s. The first ...

This is what the eastern terminus of the L-shaped sidewalk bed in the front looked like just a few days ago: Aloe ‘Moonglow’ at the far right was getting ready to burst into the biggest display of flowers it’s ever had. I did my best to count the individual racemes (flower heads) in the photo below and got to almost 50. The vigor of this hybrid is off the charts. It produces far more flowers than any other aloe I have. The flowers last a long time, too, making for a spectacular bloom season. Imagine my surprise when I found this: Aloe ‘Moonglow’ horizontal instead of vertical. The cause is immediately apparent: Between the leaves engorged from the December rains and the crazy number of flowers, the aloe was simply too heavy for its trunk. Something had to give. Fortunately, this isn’t the end, just a temporary setback. Here’s what I did. First I made a clean cut: Then I dug up the remaining trunk and at least some of the roots: Normally I would simply leave the plant exposed to the a...